Callie and Gibson had a secret friendship. Gibs kept it platonic because he was twenty and she was sixteen. But they both loved music, so they’d sneak off together and play/sing.
The night Callie disappeared; she went home after spending the day at the lake with the teenagers of Bootleg. Judge Kendall got angry because he found out she’d been with Gibson. He beat her badly (to beat the rebellion out of her). The mom beat her badly because they found out she’d been hanging out with Gibson?
She fled and was heading to Gibson, knowing he would help her. Jonah Sr. saw her on the way and stopped. He intervened because he knew his son would fly into a rage and probably kill the Judge. He offered to take her somewhere safe for the night. She refused medical care of hospital, as well as police. Jonah decided she was right because her dad’s a Judge, etc. Callie didn’t tell the Bodines who had done this to her. They probably assumed her father, but she didn’t say either way. She refused to tell.
He took her to his grandad’s old bootlegging cabin to his her for the night. Then he and Mama Bodine (Connie) made plans to get Callie out of town and away from her father. Jonah somehow got in contact with someone in Blue Moon. He was gone for a few days, with an alternate explanation to his kids about where he was going. He took her either part way or all the way to Blue Moon, where a family was waiting to take her in, no questions asked.
The alternate explanation was that his cousin in North Carolina had a flooded basement. He went there to help him fix it/clean it up.
He got a speeding ticket in New York state while he was away during this time. The Bodine kids find the ticket when cleaning out his house in book two. They notice the date and location and know it doesn’t match the story about him going to NC.
Judge Kendall told the authorities that his daughter was depressed and suicidal. Maybe claimed they tried to get her help. Be he and his wife fear that it was suicide. “She was unstable…”
Meanwhile, Mama Bodine got in touch with Mrs. Kendall because her mama heart couldn’t stand the idea that Mrs. Kendall thought her daughter was dead. A year after Callie’s disappearance, Judge Kendall caught Mama Bodine with Mrs. Kendall and talked to them. He kind of felt things out and was worried that Mama Bodine knew something. (Maybe it was even that he thought she knew that he’d been hitting Callie? Not necessarily that she knew where Callie was?) Not long after, the Judge caused the car accident that killed Mama Bodine to get her out of the way—to help protect his reputation. He didn’t worry about Jonah Sr. because he didn’t think he’d been involved or knew anything, and he was just the town drunk anyway. Didn’t want bodies piling up around him, so he left Jonah alone.
Jonah would have willfully ignored/kept away from Judge Kendall, because he’s the one who helped his daughter get out of town. Judge Kendall would have willfully ignored/kept away from Jonah Sr. because he killed his wife. So they never crossed paths or interacted after that.
Callie sent periodic updates to Jonah Sr. in the form of postcards. Not often, and they wouldn’t have identifying information on them. But she wanted him to know that she was still out there and doing fine. Postcards had song lyrics.
* * *
Connie Bodine’s accident
* * *
Connie Bodine died in a car accident [about a year] after Callie disappeared. The accident was immediately ruled an accident. She ran off the road and down an embankment. Sheriff Tucker thought it might have been suicide (there weren’t brake marks on the road?). He decided not to investigate it as such and rule it an accident (weather?) because he didn’t want to put the Bodine kids through finding out their mom killed herself.
* * *
Progression of clues
* * *
Book one:
In book one, Callie Kendall is just the town mystery/obsession. Conspiracy theorists abound. Scarlett finds the cardigan Callie was wearing when she was last seen in a trunk of her parents’ things. She takes it to the police (eventually), and the investigation is reopened with Jonah Bodine Sr. as a person of interest.
* * *
Book two:
In book two, Jameson is struggling with the increased scrutiny and gossip due to his father being a person of interest in the case. Jayme will meet with the siblings to tell them that no more evidence was found in their father’s house and they’re free to go inside it again.
During the story, Jameson is going through his father’s things (helping with the process because before they’d left it all to Scarlett), and he finds an old speeding ticket. The date is right after Callie disappeared. It’s somewhere on the route to Blue Moon, which is north, and opposite of what the kids remember being told about where he was going. He brings it to his siblings, because of the date. They all recall that yeah, Dad did leave the night after Callie went missing. They remember being told he had to go to X location, but this speeding ticket is hundreds of miles in the opposite direction from there. They recall that he was out of town for a few days, and they wonder why he was north when they remember being told he’d gone somewhere south.
Judge Kendall approaches the Bodines and tells them that he doesn’t think their father was involved. He will keep up with the story that she was “troubled” or “unstable.” Gibson will growl at that a lot. He’ll tell them he wishes they would just call off the investigation because it’s so taxing on his poor wife. It’s just dredging up old memories. He’ll reiterate that their daughter suffered from depression, runs in the family on his wife’s side, his wife has struggled for years, etc.
The case also makes national news, because Leah Mae is a celebrity model and was on a reality TV show. She’s getting bad press for her antics on the show (largely faked by editing). Paparazzi come to Bootleg when they find out where she is. This leads to pictures of her and Jameson together, which leads to the press digging into Jameson, which leads to it making national news that Leah is with a guy whose dead father is being investigated for the disappearance/possible murder of Callie Kendall. Gives national press to the whole story. (This could be one of the things that prompts Callie/Maya to come back to Bootleg. She can’t let the man who saved her be accused of her murder.)
* * *
Book three:
Cassidy is pulled away from the investigation by Detective Connolly. He has disdain for small town cops, thinks she shouldn’t be working for her dad, etc. She’s relegated to desk stuff and driving patrol. When she’s scanning old case files to put them in the database, she discovers something that makes her want to look into Connie Bodine’s car accident.
[Question: what is Cassidy doing when she looks into Connie Bodine’s accident? Is she scanning files that are specific to the Callie Kendall case? Or is she just going through old files and scanning them, and happens upon Connie Bodine’s accident report? I ask because so far no one is connecting Connie Bodine’s accident to the Callie case, at least not officially.]
Cassidy decides to track down Connie Bodine’s car. It’s still around, the junkyard guy is a basically a hoarder who doesn’t crush/get rid of stuff. So the car is there, and she brings Bowie with her when they look. They recover some things from the car.
* * *
Mystery status at the end of book three:
Connie Bodine’s accident… What if:
Since we changed the direct abuser from Judge Kendall to Mrs. Kendall, we need to make sure the Connie Bodine accident part still makes sense. Originally, we had Connie befriending Mrs. Kendall. Judge Kendall found out and had her killed.
Option one: What if Connie Bodine didn’t befriend Mrs. Kendall. What if the day she died, Connie did seek out Mrs. Kendall, but she didn’t do so in friendship. Something prompted her to be angry and frustrated. Maybe it was an election year and the Judge was up for reelection. Or she saw something in the newspaper about how great the Kendalls are. She didn’t know the whole truth about Mrs. Kendall being the abuser and the Judge covering it up, but she did assume that Callie’s parents were the ones who hurt her (or at least the dad). So in her
anger (maybe Scarlett comes by her spitfire nature honestly?), she drives her ass out to the hotel where Mrs. Kendall is involved in some kind of charity or political event. She confronts her afterward, saying she knows her husband hurt Callie, etc. Maybe she threatens to expose them? To tell the truth about what happened to Callie? We’d have to weigh Connie’s motives here - she’d want to continue to protect Callie’s whereabouts/identity. But maybe she got angry enough that she decided something needed to be done. It could have been a big fight between her and Jonah Sr. and she left and did it anyway. In response, Mrs. Kendall follows her home and runs her off the road.
* * *
Then the question would be, why didn’t Mrs. Kendall go after Jonah? Probably a combination of the Judge tightening the leash on his crazy wife a little bit, and Jonah being a drunk anyway. They figure no one would believe anything he said anyway. (Which is basically what we talked about already as to why Connie was killed but Jonah wasn’t).
* * *
Option 2: Connie Bodine believed that Judge Kendall had been the one to hurt Callie, and she assumed Mrs. Kendall was probably being abused too. She hated the idea that Callie’s mother didn’t know the truth - that her daughter was alive and well. Perhaps receiving one of the secret postcards prompted Connie to decide she had to tell Mrs. Kendall that her daughter was alive, mother to mother. Maybe Connie and Jonah still argued over this, but Connie went anyway (spitfire, lol). She could have seen something in the paper about the event Mrs. Kendall was going to be at, and she went there to talk to her. Maybe Mrs. Kendall played nice and acted amazed and grateful to have been told the truth about her daughter? Obviously we won’t know much about how this interaction went, since Connie is dead. But Connie told her that her daughter is alive and well and she’s doing okay. Mrs. Kendall doesn’t want her daughter to be found - it’s in her best interest if Callie is assumed dead - so she gets rid of Connie by running her off the road. Again, she doesn’t kill Jonah because maybe Judge Kendall tightens the leash and convinces her not to - he’s a drunk, etc.
Other potential clues (we didn’t use a whole lot of these):
* * *
Video
They watch an old family video. Jonah Sr. drunk slurs something about the Judge.
* * *
Money
They discover a large sum of money was taken out of Mrs. Kendall’s account shortly after Callie disappeared. The assumption is that it might have been ransom money? It’s suspicious because of the timing.
* * *
Letter
A letter is found that’s from Mrs. Kendall to Callie? It’s kind of vague, in that it isn’t clear that it’s a letter from a mother to a living daughter. It could say things like, “I wish things had been different.” (This may or may not be necessary if Mrs. Kendall offers later clues?)
* * *
Something Jonah Jr.’s mom knows
Jonah’s mom could tell Jonah something that Jonah Sr. said to her. He came to see her after Mama Bodine died. Maybe he told her something that she didn’t understand then, but is relevant to the case? She tells Jonah Jr.
* * *
Mrs. Kendall
Mrs. Kendall makes a scene in public. Judge Kendall walks her out, says she’s distraught, she suffers from depression, etc. After this, Judge Kendall has her committed to a mental hospital. This leads the Bodines to wonder what’s up with her and want to talk to her about Callie. Someone goes to speak to her, but she doesn’t appear to tell them anything coherent. Later, when the postcard is found and confirmed to be Callie’s handwriting, they realize what Mrs. Kendall was trying to tell them—that Callie is alive. It makes sense now. Maybe she’s also saying something that later they realize means Judge Kendall killed their mother?
* * *
Postcard
Finding the postcard. Song lyrics on the back. Gibson says it’s her handwriting. He proves it with a note she gave him. Won’t explain why he has it. Postcard is given to police. Lawyer later tells them that it’s Callie’s handwriting. They now know she’s alive. (Maybe this leads to a conclusion of sorts, where the characters are happy that Jonah Sr. has been taken off the person of interest list and the case is no longer a murder case?)
About the Authors
Lucy Score is a Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon bestselling author. Small town contemporary rom-coms are her lady jam and she enjoys delivering the feels with a huge side of happily ever after.
Her books have been translated into several languages, making readers around the world snort laugh, swoon, and sob. Lucy lives in Pennsylvania with the devastatingly handsome Mr. Lucy and their horrible cat.
In her spare time she enjoys sleeping, drinking copious amounts of coffee, and reading all the romance novels in the universe.
www.lucyscore.com
* * *
Claire Kingsley is a Top 10 Amazon bestselling author of sexy, heartfelt contemporary romance and romantic comedies. She writes sassy, quirky heroines, swoony heroes who love their women hard, panty-melting sexytimes, romantic happily ever afters, and all the big feels.
She can’t imagine life without coffee, her Kindle, and the sexy heroes who inhabit her imagination. She’s living out her own happily ever after in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and three kids.
www.clairekingsleybooks.com
Bootleg Springs Series Bonus Epilogue Page 4